Actors: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway
Director: Sydney Pollack
Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead
Three Days Of The Condor is an Unwilling Participant film - by which I mean someone is taken hostage, yet somehow within the space of a day or so, is willing to risk her life and freedom for the person who's taken her hostage. I'm blanking on the best examples of this genre - Commando comes to mind right away, but that film is a mountain of cheese whereas this one is a mere hillock. Still, it's an exemplar of the genre - MacGuffins abound, people in clandestine organizations gnash their teeth about this lone, rogue, wolf, unaccounted for operative, and the film has a 70s bent that simply couldn't be replicated today.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
The Master - 2012 - 4 Stars
Actors: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Note: Spoilers below
For as much respect as I give Paul Thomas Anderson, I realize as I sit down to write this that the only one of his films that I both really liked and understood upon first watch was There Will Be Blood. Hard Eight was entertaining but (as I recall) a trifle. Boogie Nights I saw well after the hype had died down, and while I now recognize that as an amazing accomplishment, I didn't quite get it then. I hated Magnolia, and mistrusted Punch Drunk Love. I'm not a P.T. Anderson fanboy, even though he is on my very short list of directors whose films I will see in the theaters without qualification.
The Master has the problem, at least upon first watch, of both of its main characters being inscrutable. Having one's motivations or goals be unclear is fine, but neither seems to quite know what they want. The Master is a charlatan, attempting parlor tricks to woo potential donors to his newfound religion, the Cause. His favorite subject, Freddie Quill, is exactly what The Master rails against - pure animal instinct. If Freddie isn't fighting or fucking, he's drinking so that he will end up doing one or the other. He's anger and sex mashed together, with a tinge of regret. What I at least never quite ended up understanding is what The Master wanted out of Freddie. The easy answer is that in seeing Freddie as a man like himself, maybe he can get Freddie to move away from his impulses. But where in the film have we seen that some sort of nobility is the goal of this religion? Indeed, The Master's religion is not even do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do. We don't hear a lot about moral codes. Perhaps that's the goal of the new religion - self-actualization rather than moral refinement. We need to become a better person through a greater understanding of ourselves, not through the perception of a God or of his teachings.
I suppose the conclusion of the film is that Freddie realizes that the Master cannot cure him of his regrets. The Master himself can't be cured of the things he finds necessary - popular music and American cigarettes. Freddie remembers lying down next to the false woman he's constructed, an avatar of womanhood, inscrutable and implacable. Does he ultimately choose that? I don't know. I guess I need to see it again.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Note: Spoilers below
For as much respect as I give Paul Thomas Anderson, I realize as I sit down to write this that the only one of his films that I both really liked and understood upon first watch was There Will Be Blood. Hard Eight was entertaining but (as I recall) a trifle. Boogie Nights I saw well after the hype had died down, and while I now recognize that as an amazing accomplishment, I didn't quite get it then. I hated Magnolia, and mistrusted Punch Drunk Love. I'm not a P.T. Anderson fanboy, even though he is on my very short list of directors whose films I will see in the theaters without qualification.
The Master has the problem, at least upon first watch, of both of its main characters being inscrutable. Having one's motivations or goals be unclear is fine, but neither seems to quite know what they want. The Master is a charlatan, attempting parlor tricks to woo potential donors to his newfound religion, the Cause. His favorite subject, Freddie Quill, is exactly what The Master rails against - pure animal instinct. If Freddie isn't fighting or fucking, he's drinking so that he will end up doing one or the other. He's anger and sex mashed together, with a tinge of regret. What I at least never quite ended up understanding is what The Master wanted out of Freddie. The easy answer is that in seeing Freddie as a man like himself, maybe he can get Freddie to move away from his impulses. But where in the film have we seen that some sort of nobility is the goal of this religion? Indeed, The Master's religion is not even do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do. We don't hear a lot about moral codes. Perhaps that's the goal of the new religion - self-actualization rather than moral refinement. We need to become a better person through a greater understanding of ourselves, not through the perception of a God or of his teachings.
I suppose the conclusion of the film is that Freddie realizes that the Master cannot cure him of his regrets. The Master himself can't be cured of the things he finds necessary - popular music and American cigarettes. Freddie remembers lying down next to the false woman he's constructed, an avatar of womanhood, inscrutable and implacable. Does he ultimately choose that? I don't know. I guess I need to see it again.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Chasing Ghosts: Beyond The Arcade - 2007 - 3 Stars
Subject: Early arcade video games and the people who mastered them
Director: Lincoln Ruchti
It's hard what to make of this documentary - on the one hand, it seems awfully trifling. Lacking the drama of its bigger brother The King of Kong, Chasing Ghosts instead settles for an overview of what happened to the video gamers who converged on Ottumwa, Iowa in 1982 for the first video game championship. It spends far too much time on a recollection of this event, but on the other hand, it feels like a life-altering meeting for all who attended. The documentary captures the feeling of being young and being great at *something* and being recognized for it, in spite of what other flaws you (probably) have. It's also a fascinating look at a dead world - not only is the arcade almost gone, but so too are the days when a person could be recognized for having been in a big-time magazine. Both fame and video games have undergone radical alteration in the last 30 years.
Director: Lincoln Ruchti
It's hard what to make of this documentary - on the one hand, it seems awfully trifling. Lacking the drama of its bigger brother The King of Kong, Chasing Ghosts instead settles for an overview of what happened to the video gamers who converged on Ottumwa, Iowa in 1982 for the first video game championship. It spends far too much time on a recollection of this event, but on the other hand, it feels like a life-altering meeting for all who attended. The documentary captures the feeling of being young and being great at *something* and being recognized for it, in spite of what other flaws you (probably) have. It's also a fascinating look at a dead world - not only is the arcade almost gone, but so too are the days when a person could be recognized for having been in a big-time magazine. Both fame and video games have undergone radical alteration in the last 30 years.
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